This thought just occured to me tonight, as I watched Godfather Part II on amc. Michael comes home from conducting business in Cuba and he's outside the house to see the new present in the snow. Anthony seemed to show that he wasn't happy with it, and wasn't happy with the fact that Michael wasn't there for Christmas. He neglected the present to show that he felt Michael neglected him. I might be going too far into it, but I don't see why the camera would focus for a long time it appears of Michael looking at the snow covered toy car.

I can think of another reason:
Rich children usually have little respect for money or things. Anthony grew up as a prince. He played with the car for a while and then he was tried of it. Michael is not pleased with this.
Maybe it is another example for his faliure as a father.

I agree. Showing Michael looking at the neglected toy all covered with snow was a brilliant solution in terms of cinematographic language to underline Michael's icy solitude both as a man and as a father. He was not capable to win his only son's love. While his daughter, who loved him tenderly, was going to die because of him. Poor Michael. The more I think about this character the more I see how tragic his fate was.

We were primed for this scene earlier:
When Michael returned from Havana, he asked Tom what Tom got for Anthony "so I'll know what it is." The insincerity of "Michael's gift" to Anthony is reinforced by its abandoment in the snow...along with the melancholy music, the sense of desolation at the compound. Then, when he goes inside, Kay doesn't even look up from her sewing.
That scene, in turn, primes us for the next one, when Michael asks his mother if he can lose his family.

I have to agree with Hagit for a bit. He was a prince and spoiled. Levaing a car outside means nothing substantial.

I think Michael observed the car as he returned because it was outside. This meaning that it was used throughout Christmas and the kid, Anthony, probably had fun playing with it. However, Michael was not there for it - for his son's happiness. Moreover, it seems he's "losing the family" as he's not alwasy there for them? Just my 2 cents.

I think that the little abandoned car has so many meanings. First, it shows how little Michael was involved with his family, abandoning them on Christmas and allowing others to pick out their gifts, not even knowing what those gifts were. Anthony treats the gift as it should be, a toy given without thought or love. If he felt that the car came from his father's heart, perhaps he would've taken greater joy in it. I think that abandoned car and the subsequent conversation with his mother (one of the best scenes in the movie, imho, and one of the few times we are allowed to get any insight into Mama), Michael also sees the difference between how he has chosen to run his families (upper and lower case F's) vs. how his father did. Can you imagine Vito leaving his family on Christmas? Leaving it to a stranger to pick out their gifts? Never happen.

And yet...Michael seemed so loving, tender and attentive toward Anthony when visiting him in the bedroom after the First Communion party.

I think Michael did love his children, and his wife. But he became so obsessed, so consumed with running the Business that he could never really show it in the way a younger Michael could have. In the early years with Kay, before Vito's shooting he was a different person.

Also, the devastating loss of Appolonia years earlier may have contributed to Mike's unintentional coldness and distantness toward his family. Once he lost her, he could never really be as open with his affection again.

Apple

A sure sign of Anthony's hunger for affection and love from Michael is in the scene where Kay is visiting the children and as she getting ready to leave, we see her actually beg Anthony for a kiss. We hear aunt Connie yell at Anthony, commanding him to kiss his mother. Then when she is standing at the door, she again begs Anthony to give her a parting kiss. And then Michael walks in, and slams the door on Kay.

Anthony's refusal to kiss Kay tells me that the boy really was looking to be in his father's good graces. To be loved by his father. "See pop, I'm on your side, I don't respect mom either. I chose you over mom. I'm your son. All yours now"

Of course, like any other child, as Anthony grew up, he realized that his father was a cold hearted bastard, relized that his father was not capable of being the loving man that Anthony had wished him to be. He threw his mother out. He disrespected his mother in front of him. He even had an uncle killed. An uncle who had been there for him, unlike his own father. An uncle who was showing him the attention and love that his very own father did not show him. An uncle that he had grown to love. Someone who was willing to show him affection and spend time with him, a surrogate father. And not only did his own father hold back his own love for his son, but he was also responsible for destroying the love that his uncle provided him with, by having him killed.

The kid had issues, and those issues where caused by Anthony's thirst for love from Michael.


Don Cardi

A very insightful analysis, DC. As usual!
I would only add that it's no accident that Anthony, as an adult, chooses to be an opera singer, something absolutely alien from the Corleones business, and most to his father's disappointment.

Great thread, and great analyses all around.

I would only add that Kay makes some kind of comment to Michael that "Anthony is not fine," which implies other issues that are going on offscreen. Then of course comes the Fredo assassination, which we learn in GF III, was something Anthony knew about.

I wonder what Mary got for Christmas.

Kay would naturally be in charge of purchasing Mary's gift; and I believe she would ordinarily be responsible for buying Anthony's present too, since holiday planning and child-tending were the domestic purview of the wife in 1950s America.

The fact that Michael has taken the responsibility for Anthony's gift (and delegated it to Tom instead of Kay when he was otherwise occupied) illustrates Michael's patriarchal thinking. As son and heir to the Corleone empire, Anthony has been singled out for special treatment and, by intention at least, a particularly close bond with his father.

Surrounded by father Michael (when he's not away on business), surrogate father Tom, and Michael's button men (Anthony's only "friends," as declared by Kay in the later abortion confession scene), Anthony is groomed to be a man's man in the male-dominated world of power, whether criminal or legitimate (and the line between the two is often blurred in GF II).

This is not to say that Michael's only motive for close involvement with Anthony is to prepare him as successor. I believe Michael has genuine love for his son which gives his more selfish ambitions a purifying undertone. Perhaps deep down, he wants what all fathers want for their sons: to be proud of him, to have dreams for him, to inspire confidence in him, to see a little of himself in him. It's one of the tragedies of the film that by emulating and respecting his own late father, Michael gradually becomes a stranger to his own son.

Excellent point, Cristina! I would only add that perhaps Michael, not unlike any other father, wants his son to be something more and better than himself. It is possible that Michael, at a certain time in his life, hopes what Vito dreamt for him could come true for Anthony....Governor Corleone, President Corleone....Only to realize, at the end, that not only he did not accomplish Vito's goals (but this was nobody's fault), but he even lost his own son's affection. As I already wrote in previous posts, the more I reflect on Michael's character, the more I realize how tragic his fate was. The ones he loved died or left him. He began paying for his crimes in Sicily, with Apollonia's death. No wonder he dies all by himself in Sicily, where it all began. The circle closes.

"You spend time with your family? Good, cause a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man".

Maybe Vito's words hit close to home (even thought he asked Johnny Fontaine this) I'm sure it was one of those things Vito taught Michael "right here in this room".

Very well said! And the Ironic thing about it is that Mary winds up being the one closer to Michael, the one who's curious to know about the background of the family, of the life. Anthony may have had Michael's traits as far as doing what he wanted to do, having a strong will of his own. But it is Mary that is more like Michael. Mary also had that will of her own trait, but she also knew, just like the younger Michael that we see in GFI, that the survival of the family was important. If Mary was a male, a son, there is no question that she would have followed in her father's footsteps. No question in my mind that she would have been the one to take over the family.




Don Cardi

"... the more I reflect on Michael's character, the more I realize how tragic his fate was."

Absolutely, Lavinia. I always thought that Part II played like a perfect Shakespearean tragedy, with the protagonist's nobler intentions struggling with and ultimately losing out to his darker ambitions. By the time Part III comes around and Michael finally builds a closer bond with his daughter Mary, he loses her too -- another cruel irony imposed on his tragic life, as Don Cardi noted.

And how true that parents also want to build a better life for their children than the one they had. As you observed, Lavinia, Michael didn't get the chance to be a judge, a senator, a diplomat ... it's very well likely that he wanted Anthony to have that chance. But by focusing so intently on protecting the family business -- the power base that would open all the best opportunities for Anthony -- he lost sight of the fact that there is and would be more to Anthony's life than the way he would make his living.

I had forgotten Vito's line until Harry brought it up -- that "a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man." I bet those words were circulating in Michael's mind as he stared at the little red car abandoned in the snow.